Pumpkin Pie
by Kaoru-chibimaster
Summary: Description: In which Kairi convinces Sora and Riku to help her bake a pumpkin pie. One of three Halloween one-shots, Oct. 31st 2015.


Pumpkin Pie

Description: In which Kairi convinces Sora and Riku to help her bake a pumpkin pie. One of three Halloween one-shots, Oct. 31st 2015.

A/N: This is in-universe, but it takes place three years before the start of KH1, so it's a lot more focused on what Sora, Riku and Kairi's normal lives might have been like.

Rating: K

Warnings: None.

Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts is owned by Square Enix and Disney.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

"Baking is such a _girly_ thing to do…"

"Yeah!"

"See? Sora agrees."

Kairi rolled her eyes at her two friends, the silver haired one in particular. Riku always had a bit of a problem with his pride, sure, but this was getting ridiculous.

"Sora always agrees with you." She ignored Sora's protests to her (pretty much true) statement. "And anyway, who's gonna see ya? My parents are at work, your parents are at work, and Sora's mom is up town visiting those weird cousins of theirs. Hence why you bums are hanging around my place."

"Uh, don't you have maids?" Riku asked in retaliation.

"If they were paying any attention to us, they would have long since taken the knife from you."

All three pairs of eyes settled on the small kitchen knife in Riku's hands. Not that he was using it for anything dangerous, although one might say a twelve year old holding a knife with no adult present isn't a very good idea, but rather, he was carving into a pumpkin covered in washable marker used to create something resembling a face. A jack-o-lantern. The three were decorating for Halloween, which just so happened to be the following Saturday, and with their parents busy and their school day finished, they took their rare, unsupervised opportunity to carve out a pumpkin. Kairi opted to bake with the innards of the pumpkin, while the outside was scrawled over with Sora's mediocre drawing skills. Riku, being the oldest –though not by much– was left with the task of actually cutting into the vegetable. Which he had done surprisingly well so far.

Kairi was waiting for a cut finger any moment, however.

Shrugging, Riku simply responded with a grunt before continuing his work on the pumpkin's face. Determined not to let Riku's dismissal of Kairi's words be the end of the conversation, Sora spoke up.

"Why'd you need our help anyway, Kai? Don'cha already know how to cook?"

" _Bake_. And yes. But that doesn't mean you two get to slack off. Help me out, maybe you'll learn somethin'."

"Whatever! And we aren't slacking! We're making a jack-o-lantern!"

Kairi's eyebrows twitched in irritation, and her eyes slid slowly over to Riku in disbelief.

"Last year, you said jack-o-lanterns were dumb and kiddy!" she exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at Riku. He didn't even spare it a glance.

"It is. But Tidus said he and Wakka could make a better one than me and Sora. I couldn't just let that slide."

"…You're unbelievable."

Sora grinned proudly, ignoring Kairi's disbelief. Nodding along with what Riku said, he added to the conversation again.

"Yeah, they thought they'd have the coolest jack-o-lantern in town. Me and Riku are gonna show 'em, though. No one can beat us!"

" _You're_ unbelievable! You know what—!"

Both boys watched in mild interest (and slight apprehension) as Kairi abruptly stood from her seat at the island counter, nearly knocking her bowl of half-stirred pumpkin puree over in the process. Grabbing both of their ears, she dragged them from their seats and over to her side of the counter, scowling all the while. She then stood Riku in front of the circle of dough meant to be the pie shell, and Sora in front of the puree. Pointing towards the items, she assigned them their tasks.

"Sora, you keep stirring that bowl until everything's mixed in and completely smooth! Riku, you pinch the sides of the pie crust until it's fluttery-lookin' all the way around! If it doesn't look like a princess made it, you're doing something wrong!"

"Princesses don't bake their own food," Riku quipped. "And I certainly don't see any princesses here."

"My kitchen, that makes me princess. Do as I say, peasants," was Kairi's simple reply. This earned her two blown raspberries, but the boys followed her orders nonetheless. Smiling in triumph, she skipped over to the oven and set it to the required temperature.

"Now, Mom said it has to be this high, and that we leave the pie in for this many minutes…"

Sora and Riku watched Kairi mumble to herself as they set about their tasks. They were easy enough after all, and the two only needed to get them done fast enough while Kairi was busy to get back to their jack-o-lantern. Their eyes met and they nodded in silent agreement before quickly rushing through their pie duties. Sora sent splatters of puree everywhere as he tried to whisk the ingredients into a smooth, creamy paste, leaving globs of pumpkin all over the counter and floor. Riku's crust indentations were uneven and left the dough too thin to survive the oven. Yet, as Kairi watched their recklessness from the corner of her eye, they were indeed helping and they were doing so quietly. Truly an accomplishment (especially for Sora). And really, she didn't care all that much if the pie didn't turn out perfect. She once burnt a batch of Christmas cookies trying to rush outside to play with her friends, so she couldn't really blame them for wanting to hurry back to their jack-o-lantern. Maybe she'd help them with it in return.

"Okay, you guys," Kairi said, putting a halt to the chaos that left pumpkin mush on her floor and bits of dough stuck to the side of her counter, "Now you can help me pour the puree into the shell."

"The pur-what?" Sora asked.

"The stuff you're stirring."

"Oh. The pumpkin mush."

"…Right."

Riku only shook his head and sighed as he grabbed the bowl from Sora and held it over the pie shell. Kairi grabbed the shell and held it still, the counter being too tall for her to have much confidence in pouring the puree itself. After Riku poured it, she had Sora smooth it out –and not stick his fingers into it– before grabbing it with both hands and asking Riku to open the oven. The task was finished with relative ease (Sora almost got a finger in the pie and Riku almost burned himself) and they used the wait time to continue with the pumpkin itself.

"Okay, so it's gotta stay in the oven for almost an hour. We can use this time to knock Tidus and Wakka's socks off with an awesome jack-o-lantern, right?"

Sora and Riku grinned proudly at Kairi's words, glad that she was joining in the competition.

"You bet! They're gonna regret ever challenging us!" Riku smirked, grabbing the knife and setting back to work.

"What even brought this challenge up in the first place?"

"Wakka," was the in-unison reply.

"He said Lulu was buying a pumpkin and that he would turn it into the _most epic jack-o-lantern ever_ ," Sora continued, earning a snort from Kairi at his emulated islander accent. One that thankfully skipped over the trio's hometown.

"So of course, Tidus had to join in and turn it into a big deal. Selphie's even got a betting pool for it," Riku added.

"What are they betting?" Kairi asked.

"Candy. You know that's why she's always loaded with it."

Kairi's eyes widened in realization. That explained _so much_.

"We can't lose, Kai!" Sora exclaimed passionately. "Selphie's gonna share half that candy with us when we win—"

"Oh no…"

"—so we gotta prove we're the best!"

"That, and I can't let Tidus and Wakka win against me. It goes against my entire code of conduct," Riku said. Kairi raised an eyebrow at that.

"What kind of code of conduct do you even have?!"

"The kind where I win."

What else did she expect? She only sighed as Sora nodded his head in agreement, a look of determination on his face.

"So what can I do to help, then?" she sighed.

"I need you to smooth out the corners after Sora pulls out the pieces I carve. I don't trust him to do it, since he's a clutz."

"Am not!"

"Are too!"  
"Am not!"

"Are—"

"Okay, I get it!" Kairi interrupted. They could go on forever with that. Quickly and quietly, they set themselves to their tasks, the only interruptions coming from Kairi's periodic checking on the pie and Sora's near ten minute long bathroom break. Kairi told him to go back and close the door, because she knew he didn't, and didn't bother to ask what had caused his stomach so much upset. She really didn't want to know, and Riku didn't seem to care.

"Oh shoot!" Riku suddenly exclaimed as they were nearing the end.

"What?" Kairi asked. She turned to follow his line of sight and saw three figures heading down the road towards her house.

"It's Tidus!" Sora shouted, as he peaked up and saw the glint of sunlight off of recognizable blond hair.

"And Wakka and Selphie. And you can bet they want to see how our pumpkin's going! Quick, help me hide it! Kairi, you check on the pie to make it look like you're doing something!"

"But that is doing something."

"Me and Sora are gonna put this upstairs somewhere!" And with that, Riku and Sora rushed off with their jack-o-lantern and headed for the staircase.

"Not in my room!" Kairi shouted after them as she hopped out of her chair and headed over to the oven to pull out the pie. It was finished anyway. Just as she set it on a cooling rack, she heard her back door slide open.

"Man, it's a mess in here…" was the first thing to reach her ears. Scowling slightly, she turned around and was met with the smug grins of her three other friends.

"You know you're supposed to knock before you just walk on into someone else's house."

"Yeah, but you don't really care and your parents ain't here," Tidus continued, smirking. Rolling her eyes, Kairi sighed and began to clean up the mess, Wakka striding over to help while Selphie and Tidus sat down at the table, looking over the remnants of pumpkin skin and seeds.

"You guys started on your jack-o-lantern already?" Tidus asked absently as his index finger swept over the mess. He already knew the answer before he even asked.

"I don't remember saying I was part of this competition of yours. And they were doing that while I was baking a pie. And it looks epic, by the way!"

"It took 'em that long?" Tidus snorted. His mom was known for baking all sorts of pies during the holidays, and he knew very well how long a pumpkin pie took.

"It means they put _effort_ into it!" Kairi replied, sticking out her tongue. A shout of 'ouch' was heard from upstairs, Kairi belatedly noticing that the knife Riku had was missing from the table, but the noise went unnoticed by the other occupants of the kitchen.

"'Ey! We put effort into ours too! Just wait until you see it!" Wakka said as he wadded up his paper towel and tossed it into the trashcan.

"I saw it," Selphie chimed in. "Tidus' dad helped out with it and it looks amazing. Sora and Riku need a miracle to beat that!"

"They will! Just wait and see!" Kairi pouted, although she wasn't so sure of her words anymore. Tidus' dad wasn't around much, but when he was, he was determined to do anything and everything fun to the fullest extent. If he really helped Tidus and Wakka out…her boys were doomed. And speak of the devil…

"See what?" Riku asked, a band aid on his finger. The knife, however, was nowhere to be seen. She'd have to ask him where he hid it later.

"You two done makin' out up there?" Tidus asked instead.

"Better with him than you," Riku replied with a straight face, poking a thumb back at his best friend. Tidus was quick to cover up his insulted expression. Sora, being Sora, wasn't even sure what to make of that statement.

"We were talking about our jack-o-lantern," Wakka said in response to Riku's previous question. Kairi decided to clue them in further.

"Jecht helped them with it."

Impressively, Riku managed to keep his expression cool and calm aside from a small twitch of his right eyebrow.

"Umm…Jecht?"

"My dad, Sora, c'mon. He's not exactly easy to forget!"

"Oh right…"

Riku had to fight the urge to slam his head against the table. If Tidus' dad was in the running, then they really needed to step up their game.

"Sora?"

"Yeeeup?"

"It's time for plan P."

"…The heck is plan P?"

"None of your beeswax. Selphie."

Kairi took note of the fact that Sora looked just as confused as Selphie had been. Then again, she didn't blame him. She didn't know what plan P was either. Nevertheless, she decided to divert the attention away from the conversation to make sure no one else noticed what she did. She'd ask later anyway.

"So! Since you guys are here! Who wants some pie?" Kairi asked loudly, punctuating the "so" with a clap of her hands.

"You're supposed to let it cool off."

"You need to cool off your motor mouth, Tidus. I don't have to give you a piece."

Sora snickered quietly from behind Riku. It was nice to see someone else get told off by Kairi for once. This still earned him a glare from Tidus, but then he didn't really care since he wasn't the only one laughing anyway. Only difference was Wakka, Selphie and Riku covered theirs up better. Kairi just shook her head and went to cut the pie into six slices. Divvying them up onto plates that she had Riku pull out for her, she handed each slice to each of her friends respectively.

"Dig in."

Dig in, they did. Their expressions varied as they chewed. The filling had a weird texture, the crust was too crunchy, and there wasn't even any whipped cream. Sora tried to keep his food in his mouth as he blew out repeatedly, trying to cool the piece within his mouth. Selphie simply held hers wide open as she fanned the inside with her hands. Tidus and Riku tried to chew with straight faces, but their cheeks and foreheads were reddening. Wakka seemed strangely unaffected by the piping hot slice of pie. Kairi had enough sense to let hers cool on her plate before touching it. It was practically an ordeal trying to eat the pumpkin pie.

It certainly didn't pass as any sort of food a princess would make. Let alone eat.

"Hey," Tidus said around a mouthful of pumpkin before finally swallowing. "My mom made some white potato pie. Anyone wanna come over my place?"

Kairi tried not to feel insulted at that.

Sighing, she was the first to get up and nod. Sending her untouched slice an apprehensive glance, she figured it'd be for the best. Everyone else quickly stood and agreed, not wanting to look too eager and make her mad. Or worse…make her cry. That wouldn't end well for anyone. Excited at the prospect of a much more well baked pie, all six of them herded out of the back door. Kairi sent a glance back at her kitchen. The table was a mess, the counter wasn't cleaned very well, the floor was sticky and there was a pumpkin hidden upstairs (most likely in her room, even though she told them not to put it there). Sighing, she turned and followed her friends down the road to Tidus' house.

The maids'll clean it up anyway.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

A/N: I suck at writing children, forgive me.

Also, we've already had Tidus, Wakka, Yuna, Rikku, Paine, and Auron in Kingdom Hearts, so I figured there was no harm in mentioning Lulu and Jecht.


End file.
